Wolf smoke? What is this? How to explain it? What role did it play in ancient times?
Smoke shows that the people of China have been frightened by smoke for two thousand years, and there are idioms and allusions of "playing with fire prince" and "smoking everywhere"
In the dictionary, wolf smoke is smoke burned with wolf dung. But burning wolf dung is like burning wool felt, and the smoke emitted is light brown, which is even lighter than the smoke emitted by the dry woodpile. When the dry wood under the wolf dung burned into a fire, the wolf dung finally burned, and finally it burned into an open flame with the dry wood, and even the smoke could not be seen. Why is there black smoke? There is not even white smoke.
The so-called wolf smoke on the ancient beacon tower can never be burned with wolf dung. That kind of soaring smoke can be completely burned by wetting wood with dry wood and adding oil. Even burning semi-wet cow dung and sheep dung can burn thick smoke, while wet wood, grease and semi-wet cow dung are far easier to obtain than wolf dung.
Xie Zheng, a Dunhuang scholar, believes that bonfires are not made of wolf dung, and the smoke emitted when burning wolf dung is not straight. When the ancient war broke out, a bonfire should be lit to warn the police. In peacetime, burning "safety smoke" every day requires a lot of fuel. In fact, it is difficult to collect a large amount of wolf dung if it is specially used as fuel.
So what fuel did the ancient beacon tower burn? Li Zhengyu once found the remains of burning reeds, red willows and other plants in many beacon towers in northwest China. So he thinks that the beacon tower actually burns reeds, red willows and even weeds.
Wolf smoke is an authoritative popular saying, which is burned with wolf dung. This is sheer nonsense. It's a story of the timid peaceful residents of China scaring themselves.
Since wolf smoke is definitely not burned by wolf dung, why is the soaring smoke lit on the ancient beacon tower called wolf smoke? The word "wolf smoke" does have a more terrible threat and warning effect than wolves, and wolf smoke is definitely related to wolves. Is wolf smoke just smoke warning "Wolf is coming"? The Great Wall can definitely stop the grassland wolves, and the "wolf" in the three words "Wolf is coming" is actually not a prairie wolf, but a Turkish cavalry with a wolf's head flag; It is a grassland wolf cavalry of Xiongnu, Xianbei, Turkic and Mongolia. Worship the wolf totem, take the wolf as a model, have the strategy and tactics of the wolf, have the wisdom of the wolf and have a fierce character. Grassland people have worshipped wolf totem since ancient times; I always like to compare myself to a wolf, to a wolf and to a Han Chinese to a sheep. He has always despised the sheep character of farming people with his heroism. The ancient farming people in China always regarded the grassland cavalry as the most terrible "wolf". The original meaning of "wolf smoke" should be "the fireworks signal lit on the beacon tower to warn the grassland national cavalry who worship the wolf totem to invade the customs." "Wolf smoke" has nothing to do with wolf dung.
In the dictionary, the explanation of wolf smoke is this: Wolf smoke is a kind of bonfire, which burns wolf dung on the ancient beacon tower to show the alarm, hence the name.
In ancient literature, it is shown as follows:
In the Tang Dynasty-Duan Youyang Za: "Wolf dung smoke goes straight up and is used for bonfires."
Northern Song Dynasty-Lu Dian's Ya Ya: "The ancient bonfire used wolf dung, and its smoke was straight and gathered, although the wind was not oblique."
Northern Song Dynasty-Qian: Where the frontier set fire to ships, it was often burned by wolf dung as smoke, and the smoke went straight up, although the wind was not oblique. This is often used for bonfires, so it is called "Yan Lu" and "Yan Lu".
Ming Dynasty-Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica: The wolf's intestines are straight, and the wolf's arrows are smoke in the frontier.
Ming Dynasty-Qi Jiguang's "Ji Xiaoxin Shu" Volume 17, Shou Shao? 6? 1 grass frame method "cloud:" Zudun method raises wolf smoke, and there is less wolf dung in the south, and fireworks are out of control; The grass on the handle of the arch will soon burn. How can you see it from ten miles away? "
In the Tang Dynasty, the beacon tower of Taibai Silent in Li Zhi must be equipped with "cannon stone barrier, water stop, water jar, raw grain, dry grain, hemp cloud, fire drill, rocket, wormwood, wolf dung and cow dung".
The system contained in the Song Dynasty's Wu Yao was also on the beacon tower: "Install fire extinguishers, put water poppy, dry food, hemp, fire drill, wormwood, wolf dung, cattle and sheep dung".
Even the actual combat generals like Qi Jiguang understand that there is less wolf dung in the south and fireworks are out of control; Crocodile grass, not long after the fire, ten miles away, how to visually observe it!
Does this prove from another angle that firewood can't ignite smoke that is dark and thick enough to alarm?
All over the world, mice are afraid of cats and sheep are most afraid of wolves. Taking "wolf smoke" as the symbol of the most horrible grassland national attack exposes the goat or livestock nature of the Han nationality. Since Manchu entered the customs, nomadic Manchu people loved and knew the grassland, thus temporarily bridging the contradiction between grassland and farming, and the smoke gradually dispersed. However, the profound contradiction between grassland civilization and farming civilization has not been solved. I don't know that after the Han people in the grassland re-founded, the wolf smoke was completely extinguished, but the smoke and dust cultivated and burned by the farming people spread to the grassland. This is a more terrible war smoke than wolf smoke, and a more stupid suicide war than self-destruction of the Great Wall.