Wordless stele

Wordless stele

The stele without words in Qianling mausoleum was erected by Empress Wu Zetian. The Qianling mausoleum, located 50 kilometers northwest of Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, is on the east side of Sima road of Qianling mausoleum. It is close to Tuque in the north, wengzhong in the south, and shushengji stele in the West.

Qianling mausoleum, located in Liangshan, 6 kilometers north of Qianxian County, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, is the joint burial Mausoleum of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty Li Zhi and Empress Wu Zetian. Two huge stone tablets stand in front of the mausoleum. One on the west side is called "Shusheng tablet (or Shusheng Ji tablet)", and the other on the east side is the wordless tablet of Empress Wu Zetian. "Shusheng stele" is a stele erected by Wu Zetian to praise the merits of Gaozong. She also wrote more than 5000 words of inscriptions on the stele, with black paint and gold powder. On the east side is Wu Zetian's wordless stele.

Wuzi stele got its name because it didn't engrave a word on the stele at first. It is recorded in Yongzhou Jinshi Ji in Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty: "the stele is engraved with the shape of dragon and Phoenix on its side, and its face and Yin are all without words.".

Brief introduction of stone tablet

Brief location

Qianling mausoleum, located in Liangshan, 6 kilometers north of Qianxian County, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, is the joint burial Mausoleum of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty Li Zhi and Empress Wu Zetian. Two huge stone tablets stand in front of the mausoleum. One on the west side is called "Shusheng tablet (or Shusheng Ji tablet)", and the other on the east side is the wordless tablet of Empress Wu Zetian.

"Shusheng stele" is a stele erected by Wu Zetian to praise the merits of Gaozong. She also wrote more than 5000 words of inscriptions on the stele, with black paint and gold powder.

On the east side is Wu Zetian's wordless stele. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, emperors and generals have always hoped to establish monuments and biographies after their death. However, the stone tablet of the only orthodox female emperor in Chinese history has not been engraved with a single word.

General situation of system

The wordless stele is carved with a complete Boulder, which is one of the great steles in Chinese history. It gives people a dignified, thick and integrated aesthetic feeling. There is no title on the forehead of the tablet, only eight dragon carved on the head of the tablet, which are skillfully intertwined together. The scales are clear, the muscles and bones are exposed, and the static is full of vitality.

On both sides of the monument, there are pictures of dragons rising, each with a giant dragon flying in the air. It is carved by lines, and the dragon is soaring, lifelike.

On the surface of the pedestal, there is a picture of lions and horses (or the picture of lions and horses fighting each other). The horses bend their hooves and bend their heads, which is gentle and lovely. The male lions hold their heads high and glare, which is very dignified.

There are many flowers and plants on the stele, and the lines are fine and smooth, so this wordless stele has always been famous.

According to relevant historical records, after the death of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty, the site selection, design and construction of the Qianling mausoleum were carried out under the direct guidance of Empress Wu Zetian.

As the main large-scale stone carving on the ground of the Qianling mausoleum, the wordless stele may have been erected at that time. According to the correspondence between Wuzi stele and shushengji stele, it is possible that the two steles were erected at the same time.

Although there are no words on the "Wuzi stele", its shape and decoration have expressed or far exceeded the deeper political and social meaning that words can express.

Some artistic symbols are used on the stele, such as the unconventional huge volume of the stele, the unique shape of the head square of the stone, and the exclusive emperor's nine dragon patterns to show Wu Zetian's political status. This may be the wise move of Wu Zetian or Tang Zhongzong, so that the "Wuzi stele" can be preserved to this day.

No word reason

Folk saying

There are four opinions about why there are no words on the stele.

The first view is that Wu Zetian's "wordless stele" is used to boast about herself, to show that her merits and virtues can not be expressed by words.

Wu Zetian began to be a queen in 655 and was forced to abdicate in 705.

If we count from the time of Emperor Gaozong's death, there are 21 years.

She is the only orthodox female emperor in Chinese history.

She attacked the aristocratic families in politics, and through the development of the imperial examination system, made a large number of talents enter the political stage, restrained the monopoly of the aristocratic families; she rewarded agriculture and mulberry, built water conservancy, reduced corvee and rectified the equal land system, which made the social economy rise continuously, and the number of households grow continuously; she knew that people were good at their duties, broke the rules in employing people, encouraged officials at all levels to recommend talents, and accepted advice with an open mind, "The tired Dynasty is used by many scholars.".

She strengthened the border defense of the feudal state and improved the relations with all ethnic groups at the border.

In short, Wu Zetian was a man of political ability and ideals. During her reign, she did many things in line with the interests of the people, stabilized and developed the "Zhenguan rule", pushed forward the history a big step, and played a role of connecting the past and the future of the "Kaiyuan rule".

The second view is that Wu Zetian set up the "wordless stele" because she knew her sins were serious and felt that it was better not to write the stele.

First, Wu Zetian gained trust by means of flattery, climbing from a "talented person" with low status to a queen with great power, and finally taking the throne.

Second, we should cultivate party members, establish a treacherous clique in the court, and eliminate dissidents under the banner of "imperial court" of Li and Tang Dynasties.

Third, appoint cruel officials and carry out the terrorist policy of informating and abusing punishment. Fourth, the social and economic development of the early Tang Dynasty was saddle shaped, while Wu Zetian was at the lowest point when she was in power.

Fifthly, during his reign, he lost the four towns in Anxi, endangering the unity of the country. Duty is the reason. Wu Zetian could not establish a biography for herself, but could only set the tone for later generations with "wordless stele".

The third view is that Wu Zetian is a person with self-knowledge. It's a wise move to set up a "wordless monument". It's the best way to let future generations comment on her merits and demerits. Because Wu Zetian has something positive and something negative.

During the reign of Empress Wu Zetian, the trend of economic development since Zhenguan continued; in dealing with the complicated situation before and after the death of Emperor Gaozong of Tang Dynasty, she showed extraordinary personal ability; on the two points of "accepting admonition" and "employing people", even many people with feudal orthodoxy thought marveled.

However, the negative side of Wu Zetian is also very prominent. In order to consolidate her personal position, she appointed "cruel officials", who also killed innocent people indiscriminately, worshipped Buddhism and wasted money.

Especially in the later period of the reign, the politics of the imperial court became increasingly corrupt, forming a group of new privileged nobles who were connived and supported by Wu Zetian.

Wu Zetian was forced to hand over her power and return to the emperor Zhongzong of Tang Dynasty. She knew that people would have all kinds of comments on her life. It was difficult to write the inscription well or badly, so she decided to set up a "wordless stele" for later generations to evaluate.

The fourth: in order to maintain the rule of Taoism, prevent Confucianism from coming to the stage and kill Confucianism, Wu Zetian knew that most of history was written by Confucianism. If this monument was not set up, the reputation of that generation of empresses would be completely black.

In addition, there are several opinions

First, Li Xian, the successor of emperor Zhongzong of the Tang Dynasty, could not name Wu Zetian. Did he call Wu Zetian the former Emperor? Or the queen mother? Second, although Tang Zhongzong was the son of Wu Zetian, he was once abolished and reestablished. Therefore, he was envious. It was a great shame to insert a 21-year "Wu Zhou" into the Li Tang Dynasty. For the sake of revenge, he deliberately set up a monument to embarrass and make a fool of her. Third, how to write inscriptions and evaluate Wu Zetian have been debated for a long time. Because it is endless, the monument is always empty. The credibility of these three statements lies in that emperors generally do not issue imperial edicts to comment on how to write inscriptions before their death.

It is also said that after Wu Zetian's death, the political situation was turbulent, and no one paid too much attention to it. When people paid more attention to it, there were many different opinions about his history, and it was hard to tell whether it was true or not.

Discovery inference

During a survey by the Shaanxi Institute of cultural relics, it was found that the inscription on the outer side of the stele was full of square squares from top to bottom. It is proved that these were not carved by later generations. Each of these squares is 4cm long and 5cm wide, arranged in order. There is only one possibility. They were prepared to carve on the stone tablet at the beginning, and they have already prepared the inscription. According to the calculation of the grid left on the surface of the tablet, the inscription has about 3300 words. So why didn't the prepared inscription be engraved on the stone tablet?

Historians speculated that Wu Zetian had written the inscription and handed it to Li Xian. Wu Zetian had been in power for decades, but after the "dragon coup", Wu Zetian was forced to abdicate to Li Xian and restore the national name "Zhou" to "Tang". Although Li Xian was Wu Zetian's own son, he lived in fear for a long time. After he regained the throne, although he could not vent his hatred, he could not escape He couldn't say anything good about his mother, so he left a wordless monument for Wu Zetian.

Inscriptions of later generations

It was only after the song and Jin Dynasties (960-1234 A.D.) that there were inscriptions on steles by tourists, which became steles with characters. However, most of these people have no orthodox ideas and respect for history. They just focus on their own venting. When they grab a place, they start to dance. The Nuo Da Yi stele becomes the old monk's patchwork clothes. The front text is not clear, and the back text is engraved on it. It's a basin of paste. There are some inexplicable feelings: "the female leader of the previous dynasty, a thousand years of hatred is not flat"; there are some feelings about the local people's memory and respect for Wu, the poem says: "Qianling pines and cypresses suffered from war, full of wild cattle, sheep and grass together. Only Qian people have the virtue of nostalgia and worship Zhaoyi every year. " Guo Moruo's "Ode to Qianling" says: "thousands of years of public cases have turned clouds and rain, and a hundred hectares of good land has turned into earth land. The inscriptions on the head of the stele are full of characters. Who can recognize Gu Kun yuan? "

Due to the long history, the predecessors and posterities were unable to communicate, coordinate and take care of each other, and they did so in a piecemeal way, out of order

Chinese PinYin : Wu Zi Bei