Shu Brocade, a treasure on the Silk Road
On the evening of August 19, the astronomical phenomenon “Five Stars Parallel Appearance” was staged. At this time, five planets, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn, appeared in the night sky at the same time. In 1995, a piece of Shu brocade armband from the Han Dynasty unearthed at the Niya site in Xinjiang was woven with the words “Five stars come out of the east to benefit China”. The “five stars” here refer to the five planets of gold, wood, water, fire and earth.
The “Five Stars Leaving the East Benefiting China” brocade is now a national first-class cultural relic, and one of the first batch of cultural relics prohibited from being exhibited abroad (border) in China. It is hailed as one of the greatest discoveries in Chinese archeology in the 20th century. After research, experts concluded that this is Shu brocade from thousands of kilometers away. Some experts also inferred based on the content of the inscription that it was a Shu brocade produced during the late Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period.
Confirmed origin from Shu
Loom technology replicates the brocade of “Five stars come out of the East and benefit China”
In October 1995, Chinese and Japanese archaeologists conducted rescue excavations at Cemetery No. 1 at the Niya site and successively cleaned up a number of ancient tombs. A brocade arm guard was found on the upper right shoulder of the male owner in one of the tombs. There were eight Chinese characters woven on the arm guard: “Five stars come out of the east and benefit China.” A piece of the same fabric was also found in the tomb. A fragment of brocade with patterns and patterns, with the three characters “Tao Nan Qiang” woven on it. Obviously, these are two sections cut from the same brocade. The weaving process of brocade is very complex, reflecting the highest level of brocade weaving technology at that time.
When the brocade “Five Stars from the East Benefit China” was unearthed, many scholars speculated that the brocade was made in Shu, but they could not find any more evidence to support it. Many details of Sichuan brocade still need more materials to enrich and perfect. The turning point occurred with the loom model unearthed from Laoguanshan.
In the summer of 2012, in a cemetery from the Western Han Dynasty in Laoguanshan, Tianhui Town, Chengdu City, four bamboo floor loom models soaked in water were resurfaced. This is the first complete loom model from the Western Han Dynasty discovered in my country. After in-depth research, experts confirmed that they belonged to jacquard looms. The great thing about the Jacquard loom is that it can use tens of thousands of silk threads to compile and store a “binary” code similar to a modern computer for the loom. The “heald selection” of workers during weaving is equivalent to programming the pattern, and finally weaving a patterned brocade. The most amazing thing is that there is more than one programming method for the Laoguanshan Han Tomb loom model: the sliding frame and the connecting rod are two technical means, and the patterns woven are particularly different.
In 2013, the “Compass Project” of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage began to try to restore the Han Dynasty hook-type jacquard machine based on it. Three years later, experts from the ChinaSilk Museum used the restored loom to replicate the “Five Stars Out of the East Benefiting China” brocade.
”The Mother Brocade of the World”
During the Han Dynasty, Chengdu was a nationally famous brocade center
Shu brocade has a long history and unique style. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it has been known as the “Four Famous Brocades in China” together with Nanjing Yun Brocade, Suzhou Song Brocade and Guangxi Zhuang Brocade. Shu brocade is the first of the four famous brocades. It precedes other famous brocades by more than a thousand years and has the reputation of “the mother brocade of the world”.
The origin of the ancient Shu people can be traced back to the Shushan clan. As early as 2700-2600 BC, the Shushan clan was already on the threshold of the early origin of Chinese sericulture and silk. In ancient Shu, there was the Cancong family. The Cancong family was a direct descendant of the Shushan family and the inheritor of the sericulture industry. This group changed from raising mulberry silkworms to raising domestic silkworms. Some experts believe that based on the name “Silkworm Cong”, the ancient Shu people should be the first tribe to raise silkworms for silk.
The prosperity of the sericulture industry has laid a good foundation for the production of Shu Brocade. According to “Huayang Guozhi·Ba Zhi”, as early as the time of King Yu of Xia, “the princes gathered in Kuaiji, holding jade and silk from all countries, and Bashu went to far.” The leaders of Ba and Shu brought jade wrapped in silk when they paid homage. and “Bear and Fox Weaving Skin” dedicated to King Xia Yu. By the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Sichuan brocade production was already flourishing.
By the Han Dynasty, Chengdu had become a nationally famous brocade center, and “the industry of female workers covered the world.” The production techniques of Shu brocade were also greatly improved in the Han Dynasty. On the basis of the “five positive colors” of vermilion, yellow, cyan, white and black, silk dyeing also adds “intermediate colors” such as green, purple and crimson. Shu brocade was also presented to the imperial court as a tribute. Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty once ordered Yizhou to leave the tax revenue for three years and weave “70% of the brocade tents for the palace, decorated with agarwood incense”. It takes three years of taxes from a state to weave a brocade tent. Its exquisiteness and luxury can be imagined, and it also reflects the high level of Shu brocade craftsmanship.
Shu Brocade was an important economic pillar for the government at that time, which was also the original intention of the government to set up Jinguan and Jinchuan City in Chengdu. During the Three Kingdoms period, there were disputes among the heroes and continuous wars. Liu Bei, who occupied Yizhou, where did the huge funds to support the war come from? The income from Shu brocade is his main financial income. Zhuge Liang unequivocally declared in the edict issued: “Today, the people are poor and the country is weak. The only resource to defeat the enemy is Jin Er.” Shu Brocade occupies such an important strategic position in Shu Kingdom, so Zhuge Liang encouraged mulberry planting and improved technology. , state management and other forms to vigorously support the development of Shu Brocade.
During the Zhenguan period of the Tang Dynasty, Shu brocade also pioneered the use of text-based brocade. His outstanding masterpiece – Wang Xizhi’s “Preface to the Lanting Collection”》, which caused a sensation in the capital, and was happily taken into the palace by Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was also a fan of Shu brocade. The colorful silk vest he made with “a hundred golds of gold” was regarded as a “foreign object”, which made him overjoyed. When Princess Anle, the daughter of Emperor Zhongzong of the Tang Dynasty, got married, the congratulatory gift presented by the local officials of Yizhou was a “monofilament wall dragon skirt”, which was woven with gold thread “as thin as hair”, “floating like clouds and smoke, and shining like morning glow”. This kind of skirt flower has repeated colors and lifelike patterns. Poets of the Tang Dynasty wrote poems praising: “The waist of the skirt is lined with gold”, “The waist of the skirt is lined with gold.”
Shu Brocade
Treasures on the Silk Road
Sichuan brocade is not only loved by domestic consumers, but is also continuously sold abroad via the Silk Road.
The Southern Silk Road starts in Chengdu, leaves China via Yunnan, reaches Myanmar, India, and Afghanistan, and then continues westward to Central Asia and West Asia. Sima Qian was the first to record this mysterious passage. He mentioned in “Historical Records” that in 122 BC, Zhang Qian, who was ordered to go on an envoy to the Western Regions, saw Shu cloth and Qiong bamboo sticks imported from India in Daxia (now Afghanistan). This greatly surprised Zhang Qian, thinking that there must be a road from the Chengdu Plain to South and West Asia. This road is known as “Shu Shendu Road” in history, and Shendu is now India. Current historians have discovered through research that in fact, this important channel for exchanges between ancient Shu and the West existed as early as the Sanxingdui and Jinsha periods more than 3,000 years ago, thousands of years before the opening of the Northern Silk Road. Shu brocade is one of the main commodities circulating on this road. Those horses loaded with Sichuan brocade traveled south from Chengdu. The crisp sound of horse hooves and the melodious sound of bells, mixed with the chatter, laughter and shouts of Sichuan merchants, resounded throughout the valleys and villages along the way, resounding throughout the Southern Silk Road.
After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty opened the Northern Silk Road, Shu Brocade was sought after by the world and quickly became the undisputed trade protagonist on the Northern Silk Road. Zhang Ji, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, said in “Liangzhou Ci”: “Countless bells are ringing far away from Qi, and Bai Lian should be carried to Anxi.” Many of the “Bai Lian” in this poem are Shu brocade from Chengdu.
Shu brocade is also an important commodity on the Maritime Silk Road. Experts believe that another important influence of Shu brocade on the Maritime Silk Road is the export of its weaving technology. Shu brocade technology influenced Song brocade and Yun brocade at different periods. It can be seen that the Shu brocade produced in Chengdu has made an indelible contribution to promoting material and cultural exchanges between the East and the West and promoting the progress of human civilization.
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