"Ride the Chatian River", "Kuafu Chasing the Sun" and "Chang'e Flying to the Moon" are not only literary and artistic creations in ancient China, but also the earliest science fiction works of our ancestors.
As aerospace projects such as "Shenzhou", "Chang'e", "Jade Rabbit", "Magpie Bridge" and "Heavenly Palace" have made important achievements one after another, China Aerospace has turned the vision of Chinese ancestors traveling for nine days into reality, and has also made modern science and technology rich and distinctive. Imprints of Chinese culture.
Riding the Chatian River: Artistic Imagination
Cha, wooden raft or bamboo raft, the same as "桴".
Riding a cha, floating cha or riding a raft means rowing and rafting.
Tang Li Shanfu's "Giving Xu Thirty": "From now on, I don't envy the guests who take the cha, I once went to the Sanxing Liesu." The Northern Song Dynasty Zeng Gong's "Reward Wang Wei Zhi Bian See the Gift": "Although the river and the Han cha are distant tourists, Penglai winds. I haven’t returned to the boat.” From “ride cha”, words such as “lingcha”, “star cha” and “xiancha” are derived, which mostly refer to the rafts that travel between the Tianhe River and the human world.
Tang Hu Zeng's "Yellow River": "If you want to share the Cowherd's language along the stream, you only need to wait for Lingcha to send it to the sky." Su Shi's "Yellow River" in the Northern Song Dynasty: "Lingcha fruit has immortal family affairs, how long is the road to Qingtian."
The legend of riding the Chatian River originated very early. Zhang Hua's "Natural History" in the Western Jin Dynasty contains a story of riding the Cha Floating Sea to the Tianhe River and encountering the Morning Glory and Weaver Girl.
Liang Daizong's "Jing Chu Sui Shi Ji" says that Zhang Qian passed through the Heyuan in the Western Regions, took the menstrual crescent moon, saw the Weaver Maid in a market town weaving cloth, and the Cowherd brought the cows to drink the river, and brought back the loom stone, the loom, which was presented by the Weaver Girl. next stepping stone.
Tang Li Shangyin's "Hai Ke": "One should not be afraid to be jealous of the cow and talk about using the machine stone as a gift to the king." Qian Wei of the Northern Song Dynasty performed "The Five Wonders of the Qixi Festival in the Wushen Year" One of them: "I don't know how to use the machine stone overnight, but it belongs to Chengcha Shang. Han people." Liao Xingzhi's "Qixi" in the Southern Song Dynasty: "Whoever is with the machine stone, it is better to go to the immortal Cha style Bixiao." This is the allusion.
Our ancestors do not think that riding the Tianhe River is purely a myth, on the contrary, we continue to "explore" the "possibility" of its reality, that is, the connection between the rivers, lakes and seas in the world and the Tianhe (the Milky Way or the Minghe, etc.).
Beizhou Yuxin's "Qixi Poetry": "Xingqiao communicates with Han envoys, and machines and stones chase Xiancha." "Yangliu Song": "As soon as Liucha goes to Tianchi, the Zhinv branch machine will follow." It means "Xingqiao"" Tianchi” connects the heaven and the earth.
Chen Shunyu's "Three Gorges Bridge" in the Northern Song Dynasty: "Hu can't see the Three Gorges water in Lushan, and this source is also connected to the bottom of the Ming River." It is clearly stated that the water source of the Three Gorges in Lushan is connected to the bottom of the Tianhe River.
Tang Liyong's "Fenghe in the early spring fortunately for the Taiping Princess Nanzhuang should be made": "Today, I still have a bullfight with the same offender, and ride the chasing together to chase the tide of the sea." It is the power source of rafting.
In ancient China, the four stars arranged like a raft on the side of Altair were named "天桴", that is, "the raft in the sky", so there was a "basis" for riding the Chatian River.
The Milky Way is connected with the water on the earth, and there is no longer a gap between heaven and earth.
Riding a boat on Cha is more confident and heroic than Chang'e's one-way ascension to the moon and Kuafu's tragic journey day by day!
Since then, Chengcha Tianhe has become a bright symbol of Chinese culture, and thousands of beautiful Chengcha poems have emerged one after another with new ideas and chanting.
Weaving by the River: Refraction of Technology
Riding the Chatian River, like Qixi Festival and Qiqiao, is a great fusion of astrology worship and Zhinu culture.
The extended riverside view of weaving is the reflection of textile technology in poetry.
Most of Chengcha's poems are inseparable from looms and jig stones, especially in the Song Dynasty when textile technology innovations emerged one after another.
Su Shi's "Second Yun Zheng Fu Travels with Baishui Mountain": "How did you know that you can ride on the side of the goddess and lean on the cloud machine to watch the weaving yarn." The second part of Liu Zai's "Thank you Zhu Zhongyu two poems": "I intend to pay Bai Xue Yang Chun sentence, I would like to borrow Tian Sun The weaving machine." Zhu Jifang's "Heyan Chief Baiyong·Nongsang": "The intestines are cut off with the silk and the hands are born, and I envy the weaving machine by the star!"
It is no coincidence that looms and jigsaw stones have been incorporated into poetry and painting, and the riverside view of weaving has become the theme.
From spinning wheel to waist machine, from hand spinning wheel to pedal spinning wheel, from hydraulic spinning wheel to power spinning wheel, textile machinery brings a leap in textile technology and production quality.
Therefore, even in the space science fiction's Chengcha poetry, the theme is inseparable from the beauty of the labor of the Weaver Girl from the perspective of the loom.
In other words, riding Cha "Going to Heaven" is not for other purposes, but to observe the Weaver Girl weaving cloth and to obtain the machine stone.
The emergence of textile technology and its productivity has brought people unprecedented self-confidence.
Riding on the Chatian River, it seems intuitively that the textile technology has a shining refraction in art, but the deep layer is the projection of gunpowder rockets, especially shipping and navigation technology.
The "Doufei Wood Carving" is the earliest flying machine in the world made by Zhang Heng in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
After that, there was a "hot air balloon" named after "Kongming Lantern".
After the invention of gunpowder, especially in the Song Dynasty, flying devices powered by gunpowder emerged one after another, ranging from iron-billed fire harriers, bamboo fire harriers to Shenhuo flying crows, multi-stage rockets and then "manned rockets".
Pan Jixing's "History of Gunpowder in China" believes that "manned rocket" is a great invention of Wanhu in the early 15th century.
Wanhu uses 47 large rockets as the power to drive the rockets into the air, and then glides in the air with two large kites as buoyancy.
The Chinese are not only inventors of gunpowder rockets, but also visionaries and practitioners of rocket manned spaceflight.
The progress of shipping and navigation has also added the wings of technology to the artistic imagination of "riding the Chatian River" and "watching the weaving by the riverside".
From inland rivers, inland lakes to offshore and oceanic areas, our ancestors used to "steer the rudder according to the wind" very early, that is, they would constantly turn the rudder according to the change of the wind direction, use the wind to sail the boat, sail from the north wind to the south wind, and even sail against the wind!
Compared with the three-masted and five-sailboats that appeared in the West at the end of the 15th century, my country had seven sailing vessels during the Three Kingdoms period, and later there were often as many as 10 sails, and in the Song Dynasty it reached 50 sails.
When Zheng He went to the Western Ocean, the hull was large, the scale was grand, and the technology was exquisite.
Different from the Western fixed sails at that time, Chinese sailboats have a large number of sails and can rotate with the wind. When the wind is crosswind or even against the wind, they can always be placed at an angle with the wind direction to "grab the wind". With manpower, the ship moves forward alternately in a zigzag shape, rides the wind and waves, and crosses the ocean.
The technological progress of textile machinery, gunpowder rockets, especially shipping and navigation, and the manifestation of their social productivity functions have become the artistic inspiration and source of inspiration for Chengcha's poetry creation.
Riding Cha Poems: Technology and Art Resonate at the Same Frequency
Technology is the root of art, and art is the window of technology.
Technology and art have been "duals" of harmonious coexistence since ancient times. They are "two sides of the same coin" as Li Zhengdao said.
On the one hand, art records rich content such as technological progress and the leverage effect of social productivity in the vivid form of "witnesses" of science and technology; People's thinking about creation, context, artistic interest and even philosophy.
Chengcha poetry as literature and art is no exception.
Corroborating with documents, archaeological objects, image information, etc., the poems and poems depict an evolutionary map of ancient Chinese textile machinery and technology, and write the mental journey of our ancestors who did not succumb to fate and devoted themselves to sailing and surveying the sky; Over the past, technological advances such as textile machinery, gunpowder rockets, and shipping and navigation have inspired Chengcha's poetry creation, adding confidence and heroism, and enriching and deepening the tradition of scientific and rational criticism.
It is not only the artistic imagination of the Weaver Girl culture, but also the science fiction of ancient Chinese aerospace.
"Xiaoyaoyou", which hit three thousand miles from Zhuangzhou and 90,000 miles up the road, Qu Yuan "ride on Qiji to gallop, come to Wudaofu to lead the way", "look forward to Shu and envoy to pioneer, and then to Fei Lian to envoy to belong." "The flying dream of "Journey to the West", to the "Somersault Cloud" that Sun Wukong is familiar with in "Journey to the West"... The space dream of "going against the wind" has never been interrupted in the depths of our ancestors' hearts.
In order to realize this dream, Wanhu designed a "manned rocket" and practiced it, even giving his life!
Zhang Heng's "Si Xuan Fu" of the Eastern Han Dynasty brought into play the wonderful imagination of riding the Tianhe River and cruising the universe: "Watching the barriers fall in the north, cutting down the river and drums. Taking pictures with a low backlash, and taking precautions against the second century and five latitudes." Zhang Heng is not limited by straightforward imagination, but strives to use technology as a tool to realize this dream, the world of "done flying woodcarving" This is how the earliest aircraft was born.
Zhang Heng's spaceflight dream is the perfect unity of technology and art.
The breakthrough of nautical science and technology of "grabbing the wind" has realized the control of natural forces by human beings, and the ocean voyage of "going against the wind" has since become a reality.
In addition, the developed textile production supported by scientific and technological innovation, the expansion of the Maritime Silk Road starting from Quanzhou, and the advancement of textiles, rockets, navigation and other technologies, reflected in literature and art is the Song Dynasty. The unprecedented prosperity of Chengcha poetry creation.
The achievements of Zheng He's voyages to the West were projected into the poems of Chengcha in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Such a different kind of self-confidence begins with the letter "Xingcha Sheng Lan" at one's own expense.
This book is not a sci-fi fantasy but records the deeds of Zheng He's voyages to the West.
From the Maritime Silk Road to Zheng He's seven voyages to the Western Ocean, the "flying against the wind" of taking advantage of the wind or even against the wind and his achievements in sailing to and from the ocean aroused the incomparable self-confidence of the ancient Chinese. Floating in the wind, taking the opportunity to commit bullfighting" the soaring pride!
From Ming and Tang Shunzhi's "Sending Gao Xingren to Ryukyu", "The Heavenly King Jade Book awarded the three halls, and the Han envoy star chased down a hundred barbarians", and Qing Wang Maolin's "Returning News of the Second Brother of the Boat to the Ryukyu Envoys", one of which "Wear the Tao and take the cha guest, be safe. It can be seen from the verses such as "flowing reality is joyful", the sailing practice of "hundred barbarians" such as envoys to and from Ryukyu has replaced the pure imagination of riding the Chatian River.
Correspondingly, "watching weaving" has also changed from the imagination in the sky to the activities of the human world.
The mural "Prince Viewing Weaving" in Kaihua Temple in the Northern Song Dynasty in Gaoping, Shanxi depicts the Buddhist scriptures of the good friend Prince observing the weaving of the human world. The looms and spinning wheels in the picture are the true portrayal of the weaving in Shanxi at that time.
At the same time as the prince's view of weaving in the world, Sima Guang of the Northern Song Dynasty also stated in the second part of "Spring Posts: The Six Songs of the Empress Dowager's Pavilion": "The warm sun is engraved at the beginning, and the soft wind hits the clothes. ."
"Use it to control destiny"!
From the sky to the world, from imagination to exploration, riding the Chatian River and the riverside to watch the weaving, the poems and poems of the past dynasties are not only an epic of Chinese ancestors who traveled through the nine heavens, but also a scientific and technological practice of understanding nature and exerting subjective initiative to realize the dream of spaceflight. .
China Aerospace has finally turned the Chinese nation's thousands of years of dream of surveying the sky into reality, and has also completed the great unification of modern technology and ancient art.
(Author: Ren Chunguang, lecturer at Shanghai University of Applied Sciences; Yang Xiaoming, professor at Donghua University)