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asksythe · 1 year

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Wei Ying might actually be long-lost royalty (mark 3) but it doesn’t actually mean all that much. Historical tragic, super spicy gay drama! - An Essay (1)

So I’ve been asked: now that we know MDZS happened during Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasty era and that the name of one of the dynasties (Northern Wei 北魏) is the same Wei in Wei Ying Wei Wuxian (魏). How come nobody in MDZS ever remarked on Wei Ying having the same surname as the royal family?

There are three reasons for this:

1. The royal house name of Northern Wei was not Wei. It was Yuan… and Tuoba before that.

Yeah…

Northern Wei eventually fractured into East and West Wei, with each branch of the royal family (Yuan and Tuoba branches) taking power on each side.

The other Wei state in the same Six Dynasties Period was Cao Wei. The ruling house name was Cao… as in … Cao Cao… of the Romance of The Three Kingdoms fame… Yeah…

The actual royal house with the Wei surname that you are looking for came from the Wei Kingdom during Warring States (4BCE to 2BCE), i.e., the period of chaos and war right before unification by Qin Shi Huang. I.e., over half a millennium before MDZS timeline (Although this is probably the era when the great Houses were founded: Wen, Jiang, Jin, Nie, and Lan. The book did mention the time before Wen Mao, the founder of House Wen, brought about the fall of the sect system to be a time of wars and chaos and that the Burial Mound was a Holy Mountain that was corrupted due to the countless dead well before Wen Mao’s time).

Wei Kingdom 魏国 started out as a vassal state (called the State of Wei). Through generations of achievements and war alliances, this state evolved to become a Kingdom. The first Wei King was Wei Ying (魏嬰). Yes. That Wei Ying. Although the Ying here is a variation of the way Wei Ying’s birthname is spelled in canon with the meaning remaining the exact same. His posthumous title is Wei Hue Wang (King Wei Hue).

Although if you are looking for the historical counterpart of Wei Ying (and Jiang Cheng), you will have to look three generations down at his great-great-grandson Wei Wuji (Wuji being another way to write Wuxian), also known as Lord Xinling (Xinling Jun). Wei Wuji and his elder brother’s life is more or less what happened to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng Jiang Wangyin in MDZS. Except in the real world, it’s Jiang Cheng who is gay (Bi, really) and whose lover’s title (Lungyang Jun) is used as a way to refer to gay porn for 2000 years after his death. Historical Wei Wuxian still died of a broken heart because his brother betrayed him though. Unlike novel Jiang Cheng, however, historical Jiang Cheng (King Wei Anli, elder brother to Wei Wuji) was said to have died of an illness supposedly caused by hearing his younger brother had died of a broken heart. Fans of tragic, complicated, highly spicy gay romance, eat your heart out.

Ladies and gentlemen: the historical Jiang Cheng, King Wei Anli (in modern Chinese cinema), also the man who introduced gay porn into Chinese literary history.

(Modern Chinese cinema representation of Lungyan Jun: historical Jiang Cheng’s beau and the man whose title became synonymous with gay porn for literally two thousand years and counting)

(Ancient gay porn featuring not-historical-Jiang-Cheng and not-Lungyang-jun. In ancient China, novels were written based on real concurrent events with names switched out. Pay close attention to the hair ornaments of our actors here! The one on the left is wearing a hair crown typically reserved for royal men, whereas the one on the right is wearing a cap reserved for male court officials)

Historical Wei Ying! By which I mean Lord Xinling Wei Wuji (modern Chinese game), the war hero who died of a broken heart because his big brother don’t wanna play with him no more.

Incidentally, Wei Wuji and his brother King Wei Anli were the first people in recorded history to own Tiger Tally (Hufu).

But I shall talk about all this ancient gay drama and the OG tiger tally another day (So long, historical Jiang Cheng! You are still a horrible brother, you little shit!).

2. Slavery System of Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties Era. Wei Jin Era really is just Warring States Era Mark 2. War Harder!

That is to say, being of royal blood is not what it’s cracked up to be during this specific era. Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties Era (also called the Six Dynasties Era) is kinda a special case in post-Qin-unification Chinese history for the simple fact that China was anything but unified during this period.

To understand this period, you have to look at the sheer brutality and the miraculous nature of Qin unification. Qin Shi Huang did something that nobody before him had ever done. He united hundreds of different ethnic groups through murder, violence, and a case of genocide here and there. He forced enemies that had been feuding against each other for literal centuries to become fellow countrymen. He razed temples to the ground. He tore down capitals. He burned books and then burned the men who read such books beside them. He erased entire languages and cultures and forged a single, united country out of all that. For all that he contributed to China, the title tyrant is not wrongly awarded to him.

But with such a strong, charismatic, forceful leader, you eventually have to face the big problem: their death. The Qin Dynasty really didn’t last long after Qin Shi Huang’s passing. The Han dynasty right after was even more short-lived. Some historians even called that dynasty a stillbirth. The thing that followed was a period of pure chaos and violence where differences and ethnic tension that had brewed throughout Qin and Han dynasties finally exploded.

Thus, was born the Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties, where the previously united Empire fractured into various petty kingdoms warring against each other. At one point, there were sixteen petty kingdoms where a united empire once was. What followed were approximately three centuries of various ancient states, petty kingdoms, cultures, and ethnic groups killing, fucking, cannibalizing, marrying into each other, massacring each other, tearing, and mushing apart and into each other until they eventually became a much more homogenized cultural and racial amalgamation and arrived (with a minor hiccup at the Song dynasty, another very short-lived dynasty) at the Tang Dynasty, which was considered a golden age in Chinese history and lasted for four centuries.

So then, in an era like this, being a reigning royal is not that big of a deal as you may think it is. In fact, this specific era was known as the era where the Noble Houses and not Kings were the ones who held the real power. Yes, noble houses like the Wen, the Jiang, the Jin, the Nie, and the Lan. Because there was no effective central power, the historical counterparts of the Houses in MDZS held power that they wouldn’t in other dynasties. Not only did they own vast territories and held legal power over them, but they also charged tax brackets that were previously only charged by Emperors or Kings. They could gather army conscripts and organize their own armed forces.

In the novel MDZS, the cultivator Houses acted exactly like the historical Noble Houses during the real Wei Jin Northern and Southern Dynasties. They held massive territories and could exert certain levels of administrative and legal power over them. They held hunting rights, tax rights. In the novel, during the Sunshot campaigns, all cultivator houses started gathering conscripts and volunteers for their Sunshot war. And finally, under Jin Guangyao’s reign, they built massive military structures. This would be unthinkable in both the era before and after this one specific era.

Ah… going too far off the topic. I digress. The point is, being actual reigning kings during this era is really not what it seems, let alone being long-lost royals. Because being long-lost royals means your royal family probably already kicked the bucket in historical Chinese Game of Thrones… and that means… you are a slave.

Yep, slavery. During this time in ancient China, society was separated into a strict nine-ranked caste system. Depending on which rank a person was, they might have certain rights (and duties) and could do certain jobs, and enjoy some level of protection from the provincial government. But if you are low on this ranking scale, you are effectively… not a human at all, not in the eye of the law.

Indeed, the lower ranks of this caste system were effectively serfs, who, if they dared leave the territory of their lord, would open themselves up to slave cartels. For example: Jin Guangyao’s mom, Meng Si, during this era would be categorized as Jianren (賤人, lit: petty person, this is the insult Madam Yu used against Wang Lingjiao), an owned Jianren at that. This means that even if she quit the brothel and took young Meng Yao with her, her caste as Jianren would still remain… which means she and her son Meng Yao would be forbidden from official examinations, would not enjoy protection from the law, would not be able to own particular business, would not be able to buy and own properties, and could only do lowly, menial jobs reserved for Jianren… unless she could pay an exorbitant amount of money and favor to a local magistrate to have him create new documentations for her and push her up on the caste system. Should she run and leave the city where she was based in, without the right documentation, she would open herself and her son up to roving slave cartels in the unprotected territory between city-states. Once she fell into slavery, her status as a slave, alongside her son, would be effectively legal in the eyes of the law (what passed for it) at that time.

Slavery is legal during Wei Jin era. In fact, slavery in China was legal up until very recently, in the last century. It was accepted and practiced wide-spread.

By that same system, if you were a citizen of a city-state on the losing side of a war, you would also be effectively a slave. Under this sytem, entire cities and small kingdoms of people were enslaved. Indeed, this is how Qi Huang Wen branch including Wen Qing and Wen Ning were treated in the novel: as slaves of the losing side. Originally they were stationed at Ganquan 甘泉 until Jin Zixun came and forced Wen Ning and other Wen people to Qiongqi Path, which was owned by the Jin. Because they were effectively slaves, even when they did nothing wrong, no one stood up for them. No one but Wei Ying.

This is even pointed out when Wei Ying said in the novel that because they are Wen, so they are not humans. Is that what you mean? When he went to Qiongqi Path the first time. In the eye of Chinese society of that time, the Wen... really weren’t considered humans at all.

So the point is, even if Wei Ying is long-lost royalty, in the eyes of the people in MDZS, he would be effectively a slave or from slave blood. So, Madam Yu did actually have a point when she repeatedly insulted Wei Ying (and his father) and treated them as she would a slave. Because in the eye of society of that time, they were slaves. It didn’t matter how talented Wei Changzhe was or that he was married to the disciple of Baoshan Sanren, a peer of the founders of all 5 great houses, he was still a slave. It didn’t matter how talented Wei Ying was or that he was a war hero or that he spoke truth, because he came from lowly blood, because he had no House and no Clan behind them, anyone at all (Jin Zixun, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Cheng, effectively the entire cultivator world) would feel like they could push him around and insult him without fearing retaliations. In an era without law, if you are alone, then you are automatically guilty.

3. Real-life cultivators are actually super anti-authority anarchist hippies. Also, MDZS world is probably heading for cultivator’s Armageddon. Also, Lan Qiren is full of shit. Two of the three Founding Sages of Daoism (real-life basis of cultivation and xianxia) say so.

-To Be Continued (I’m tired. This is longer than I thought. I’ll complete this another day)-

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #Wei Jin #Wei Ying #Wei Wuxian #Jiang Cheng #Essay

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